ARCHIVED - Old submarine could become floating museum in Cartagena

The Tonina has been lying abandoned in the Cartagena shipyard for 13 years

A motion is to be debated in the regional parliament of Murcia concerning a proposal to convert the Tonina, a decommissioned military submarine which has remained in the Navantia shipyards in Cartagena for the last 13 years, into a floating museum similar to the one in Torrevieja, in the province of Alicante.

The S-62 Tonina is one of four S-60 class submarines which built between 1968 and 1975 for service in the Spanish navy, and her sister vessel the S-61 Delfín is the one which attracts visitors in the port of Torrevieja. Delivered to the navy in 1972, during 32 years of service the Tonina was at sea for 31,000 hours and covered a total distance of over 200,000 miles before it was taken out of service in September 2005.

The other two sister vessels belonging to the Spanish navy were the S-63 Marsopa, which was sold for scrap in 2013 after seven years out of service, and the S-64 Narval, which has already been scrapped, but the Tonina is still awaiting her destiny and in the meantime the condition of the sub is slowly deteriorating. Should the submarine be converted into a museum a good deal of work would be required to reverse this deterioration and turn it into an attraction similar to the one in the Torrevieja, but at the same time it would add to the already considerable attractiveness of Cartagena as a destination for anyone with any kind of interest in military, and particularly naval, history.

According to Elena Ruiz Valderas, the MP tabling the motion, in the last ten years the Delfín in Torrevieja has received over a million visitors.